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Teenagers Charged With 'Intimidation' After Sharing Siri's Helpful Response For A School Shooting (nwitimes.com)
A 13-year-old boy visiting family in Indiana has been charged with "intimidation", according to the Northwest Indiana Times:
The boy allegedly said to Siri, iPhone's voice assistant, "I am going to shoot up a school," according to a news release from the Valparaiso Police Department. Siri then replied with a list of multiple Valparaiso schools near his location. The boy, identified as a Chesterton Middle School student, posted a screenshot of the inquiry and response on social media, which was reported to Chesterton police by the boy's social media contacts.
Chesterton police then contacted the Valparaiso Police Department, which launched an investigation into the possible threat. Valparaiso officers determined the boy made no direct threat to a specific person, school or school system and that he had no access to weapons -- ultimately stating the picture was posted on social media as a joke. "The threat is not believed to be credible at this time; however, these types of communications are taken very seriously by the Valparaiso Police Department and our community," police stated in a news release.
A 14-year-old was also taken into custody, and is also being held in a juvenille detention center, facing charges of intimidation and "criminal recklessness with a handgun" over related photographs with weapons.
"Come on kids. It isn't funny..." reads one comment on the police department's Facebook page. "How many of you are going to be detained before you realize it?"
"Thank you for taking it seriously, and prosecuting it accordingly," added another commenter. "'I was joking' is not a defense. Hopefully juvie knocks some sense into this kid."
"I hope he's prosecuted for this! Totally not funny and as a parent I'm taking any threats against schools serious!" reads another comment -- though at least one person directed their scorn somewhere else.
"Sounds like Siri needs to be re-programmed."
Chesterton police then contacted the Valparaiso Police Department, which launched an investigation into the possible threat. Valparaiso officers determined the boy made no direct threat to a specific person, school or school system and that he had no access to weapons -- ultimately stating the picture was posted on social media as a joke. "The threat is not believed to be credible at this time; however, these types of communications are taken very seriously by the Valparaiso Police Department and our community," police stated in a news release.
A 14-year-old was also taken into custody, and is also being held in a juvenille detention center, facing charges of intimidation and "criminal recklessness with a handgun" over related photographs with weapons.
"Come on kids. It isn't funny..." reads one comment on the police department's Facebook page. "How many of you are going to be detained before you realize it?"
"Thank you for taking it seriously, and prosecuting it accordingly," added another commenter. "'I was joking' is not a defense. Hopefully juvie knocks some sense into this kid."
"I hope he's prosecuted for this! Totally not funny and as a parent I'm taking any threats against schools serious!" reads another comment -- though at least one person directed their scorn somewhere else.
"Sounds like Siri needs to be re-programmed."
The land of panic and fear.
“The best time for photography inside educational institutions is on sunny days when classrooms are full and you can use sun and shadow most effectively...”
It doesn't matter whether technology is involved or not, or what their comedic intent was: stating something about wanting to go ahead with terrorism or murder is going to get the attention of authorities, and they are going to start by doing a full investigation of the threat with no smile or laughter whatsoever.
Kids need to wise up
The unofficial
It's very much commenting on the situation. I know he's a kid, but AFAIK fundamental rights still apply when it comes to prosecution. His school can punish/expel him, but I would think the cops are gonna get a call from the ACLU...
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School shootings have become a regular occurrence in the USA. A "normal" part of everyday life. How did this happen?
A culture of individualism over collectivism, and easy access to deadly weapons. And the US is a very big country. Next question.
Shouldn't he... Siri should have immediately informed police and not give addresses to schools. wtf
[($)]
That's the worst kind of stupid (perhaps intended mainly to garner effect, in which case it's hardly any different from the original case of Siri's adolescent accomplice). Really, it's complete BS that the police detained this child in the hope of "knocking some sense into him".
The police respond because they can't not respond, no matter how they assess the risk, because if a school shooting did follow from this, no matter how long the chain of events, and they had done nothing over the first comical wisp of smoke, they'd be roasted alive.
The preadolescent brain is not a reliable thing. It's changing in massive ways, and not very well equipped to even notice those changes in any systematic way.
I had a friend around the same age who once flew an aluminum foil kite into a pole-top power transformer. Kevin had big dreams, and he was always up to something, but he was just one of those kids with less than normal common sense. I liked him a lot.
After the kite explosion—yes, an actual explosion—boy did he ever get plunked down on the couch for a quadraphonic fusillade (both parents, both hydro workers). He was white around the edges for an entire school week. That was the appropriate response: a tiny taste of every adult in Dodge giving him the what for in WWE roof-raising double tag team.
Juvee would have scared (scarred) Kevin into never emerging from his basement ever again. It would not have knocked the least iota of "common sense" into his weirdly developed adolescent brain.
Google predicts that the next word is "workplace". Does that mean that iOS is for kids & Android's for grown-ups?
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
School shootings have become a regular occurrence in the USA. A "normal" part of everyday life. How did this happen?
Sensational news media mostly. The rates were much higher in the early 90's and just like most crime, the overall rates are much lower now than in the past. However, the old saying of "it bleeds, it leads" is still relevant and no one wants to read stories about how things are generally better than in the past. That's essentially what Trump's Make America Great Again boils down to: the notion that things have gotten worse and we can see that people like to buy into this notion when it isn't true.
I do recall reading some previous research that linked gun violence in schools with economic troubles. I couldn't find a full-text version of the paper, but here's an overview of the research: https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/about/news/2017/infographic-hagan-school-shootings.html. The authors are just claiming that there's a correlation, so the cause may be deeper, but it was an interesting take that I hadn't seen before.
There have been more than a few school shootings where the shooter had posted shit like this and people shrugged it off as "no threat here, kinda funny." Then they cart bodies out of the classrooms while people wonder why the police didn't take action on pretty blatant warning signs. Now that people are doing their due diligence, retards like you are shouting "OVERSTEP! OVERSTEP!" There's no god damn winning here.
What he said probably isn't. The OP talks in terms of there being no credible threat nor against specific people or places. That's obviously informed by the current Supreme Court standard.
That doesn't mean the police's ears can't perk up and take a closer look, but it is not prosecutable by itself.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Having to grow up around paranoid, cowardly excessively serious adults who should know better.
[...] is absolutely outside of the free speech modifiers in the constitution (see shouting fire in a crowded theater, if that is still taught in civics classes as opposed to weird gender things)
To be pedantic, shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is probably protected by the First Amendment, because it's not directed, nor likely, to incite or produce imminent lawless action. Though shouting "Fire! Trample the people around you to survive!" may be illegal.
One day, shortly after getting an iPhone. I asked Siri "where is the nearest Discount Tire store location". She replied "I'm sorry, I can't give you that information". I tried several times - same answer. I wondered why she wouldn't tell me, and what else was off limits. To explore the problem space, I then asked "where is the nearest place I can score heroin?" She replied with directions to a sketchy neighborhood near me. I asked "where can I find a female prostitute?" She replied with the addresses of several escort and massage places near me. I then asked again "where is the nearest Discount Tire store?" - the answer was still "I'm sorry, I can't give you that information." I'm not sure how she decides what to share with me and what not to.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Are you completely insane? Kids say and do stupid shit all the time and there is no evidence that he ever actually intended to do anything. Kids are not just small versions of adults, their brains are still developing and you can't expect a 13 year-old to make decisions like an adult. This kid needs counseling. Who seriously thinks it's going to be helpful to anyone to send this kid to juvi? It's certainly not going to help the kid and there's plenty of evidence to support that. I also think you also need professional help and I certainly hope you don't have any children of your own.
My son was escorted to the office, by an armed SRO, for writing "Columbine" and showing it to a friend. Then he got to spend hours talking to the SRO, other LEOs, guidance, and the principals.
I get not wanting to miss warning signs, but is this too far?
Dale was pushed by a known Russian agent, Sterling Marlin, son of a known crazy man.
The article makes reference to two kids, the incidents seemingly unrelated. The first kid, a 14yo, apparently posted pictures of guns. Fine, cops should investigate and make sure that he doesn't actually have access to them. (Who knows, maybe he scanned a picture out a Sears catalog, but check just in case.)
The second kid, a 13yo, told Siri he was going to shoot up a school. Cops want to charge the 13yo with "intimidation". WTF?
In a world with too many obsessive gun nuts, where there's a boogeyman in every corner, just waiting to leap out and commit terrorism (a nicely vague catch-all under which too many non-terroristic things can be lumped), and the news constantly warning that they're all around us (remember the Commie scare?); in a world with nifty gadgets you can ask questions of and receive frequently non-sensical or useless or stupid replies (have you ever asked Siri something? It's way too often useless); in a world where teenagers are curious and prone to doing things just to see what will happen, does nobody consider that maybe a bored kid, constantly bombarded with news warnings about boogeymen, terrorism, guns and won't-someone-think-of-the-children schools, might have decided to make a statement to Siri just to see what kind of stupid response would be provided? Does nobody consider that, on seeing the stupidity of Siri's reply, he might have thought it was stupid enough to share with friends for a laugh? "Hey guys: you know how useless Siri is? Look at this."
Apparently not. Nope, the kid's clearly a closet terr'ist. Gotta charge him with being a violent criminal and put him in a cage. We can't have bored, curious kids running free. Common sense? There's probably something you can be charged with if you try to exhibit any.
I really feel sorry for anyone growing up in the US. They really are metaphorical frogs in a gradually heating-to-boiling pot and too few of them seem to understand how farked-up things are.
Kid threatens to shoot up school. Kid faces charges. As it should be.
Unless the threat/joke was actually credible, the kid should not have been charged. Believe it or not, there are ways to discipline children without involving the police and courts.
A major problem in America is that we are over-policed. Crime rates have fallen dramatically over the last three decades, due mainly to demographic, economic, and environmental factors. Yet we have more police than ever. This surfeit of police without enough real work to do, leads to criminalization of silly things like inappropriate teenage social media posts.
Plus, by the time this kid gets out of detention their mind will be wrecked by the whole experience, and let's hope they don't drop the soap.
The prison system today is designed to create criminals, not help them. More meat for the grinder.
You're a moron. Guess what? This is the United Fucking States of America, not your beloved Communist China. In America people are allowed to say pretty much whatever they want. It doesn't matter that it scares you or makes you feel bad. You are the one who needs to be in prison for subversion.
He also didn't "post it," as you say (implying that he posted the threat, "I'm going to shoot up a school"). He posted a screenshot of Siri's stupid response to the statement.
see shouting fire in a crowded theater
Not even similar. In a theater such a warning is a false alert to an IMMEDIATE and CREDIBLE threat to life and safety. The simple statement, "I'm going to shoot up a school" is neither immediate or credible by itself. Stop "thinking" with your idiot feelings and use your fucking head.
Jesus this country needs a purge.
If you think the cops are bored now, just wait till self driving cars free up all the traffic details. They will have to make more laws to enforce.
Juvee is pretty much useless if your goal is turning kids into productive members of society. Its only real use is making suburban parents feel safer and getting votes for prosecutors who list sending kids there as an accomplishment. If the police are going to do anything that might 'scare' the kid in a helpful way, community service or even probation would work a lot better, or, well, at all.
True story: I was called to school because of my 5th grader's "Aggressive use of colors" in an art class.
Common sense is truly no longer common.
You're right about the second kid though. It's no longer joke in poor taste when you've shown you have the means to act.
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The response doesn't have to include locking up and prosecuting kids who have no real intent to do anything.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It's probably like Yelp... Google approached Discount Tire for advertising, Discount Tire declined, and Google said, "Well, fuck you, then". You're paying to be advertised to, so really, you'll never know.
I don't respond to AC's.
there are ways to discipline children without involving the police and courts
In this situation I can understand the police seeking to assure that there is in fact no threat.
I think they can also play a role in scaring a kid shitless in a "Dude, we nearly shot you. Stop fucking about!" kind of way that helps the idiot understand how silly he was while at the same time making him glad the police realised he was just being stupid.
Maybe I expect too much from the police in America.
He didn't do that. He made a FUNNY video and posted it. People need to lighten up. There is zero evidence of anybody making a threat. Interpreting every thing as such is just retarded.
This. And a bias towards making anything that makes "g.g.g.g.guns!!!" look bad. Kind of why I quit listening to most media outlets now. Look at how many times T____ has been proved to be Workin' with the Ruskies---only to need to retract the story. Our the recent condemnation of a boy in a MAGA hat just standing and smiling, while the Viet Vet Native American who was praised for everything---oh, by the way, tried to disrupt a Catholic mass. BTW, when was the most recent school shooting vs Police getting shot?
How did Siri respond? What was the joke?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Wrong. He told Siri he was going to shoot up a school, probably to see how Siri would react. Siri's reaction was. let's say "unfortunate", so he posted it.
I remember my 4th grade teacher explaining how America was better than Russia because we have freedom of speech but in Russia you had to watch what you say or you could be hauled away by the police.....
Apparently it's not reasonable to expect adults to know the difference between a terrorist threat and teasing Siri, why hold 13 year olds to a higher standard?
Had they not actually charged him with a serious crime and hauled him off to juvie, you might have a point.
Instead, all he has learned is that anyone who says the police are his friends or that we have freedom of speech is full of crap.
Kid threatens to shoot up school.
It's weird to threaten a school you can't even find without an automated assistant.
Ezekiel 23:20
To quote Aristotle, "Whoooooooosh!"
The GP's point isn't whether school shootings may, or may not, now be more common in the USA. It's the fact that it's even an issue. It's an anomaly not only in the developed world, but the world as a whole. It's an indicator that something in its society is really quite fucked up.
He also wasn't arrested, just interviewed and let go; the kid that was picked up is another kid that posted some more serious threats with pictures of guns etc
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In this situation I can understand the police seeking to assure that there is in fact no threat.
Except that is not what they did.
I think they can also play a role in scaring a kid shitless
"Scaring kids shitless" is not what police are for. Nor are they a replacement for parents.
Maybe I expect too much from the police in America.
Indeed.
That's not what TFA says.
Posting to undo erroneous modification - I attempted to mod another post flame bait and hit this one instead, sorry.
Yeah, I'd rather have a prankster who sometimes goes too far than an ex-convict who hates society.
As a father of three boys... I know boys will do and say stupid things all the time...and its impossible to keep them on lock down 24/7 .. A good scare would had been been OK but charging him like an adult , no its a fucking child
America is not over-policed. America is a brutal police state and a police state must terrorize and intimidate citizens, making them feel confused and helpless, making them feel they can be arrested anywhere for any reason.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
How about this alternative response:
A 13 year old is supposed to do this kind of dumb shit. It's called being a teenager.
Every single teenager in america thinks they are 1 stupid video away from career of youtube stardom.
Send the kid to film school, not juvie.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
By tracking down you mean visit a kids public social media feed and view an edgy video over the caption "lol wut?"
Maybe send an officer so that he understands the gravity of the situation, and put an embarrassing message on his his social media account from the local fuzz.
Our justice system ruins lives. The kid is a very dumb 13 year old. He needs his toys taken away, and his internet access restricted, not criminal rehabilitation.
There is no "justice" to serve here. Only court fines and shattered dreams.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Except of course for the inconvenient fact that the kid did not threaten to shoot up school.
This follows under basic netiquette. Don't believe ir react what you read online until you confirm it IRL. These cops don't know how to use the internet. They keep taking it seriously.
Just think, if he was only brown he would have gotten invitations to Facebook and the whitehouse 3 years ago.
Counselling, as in a couple of sessions with a shrink or adviser? Not that either. Because there’s nothing wrong with that kid; other kids that age have a similar lack of judgment even not everything they get up to results in a scare like this one. He just needs to be taught. Have a cop come to his home or take him to the station and give him a good talking to. Maybe also have a talk with the principal. The last thing anyone needs is to make this into a big deal, so think education rather than the punishment that everyone seems so eager to dole out.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
It's not the charge, but the sentence that matters. Sentences take intent into consideration.
I shit you not.
Our physics teacher had 1 day in the spring when he asked us to bring our firearms to school from home and we shot at different things just outside the physics classroom.
About 5 kids out of 20 brought their guns. The teacher had 6 firearms that we each got a chance to shoot too. I brought my 22, but mainly shot the 12gage and 9mm that the teacher provided.
A pig carcass was one of the targets, but we had cans, milk cartons, and target plinkers too.
Conservation of energy was the topic that day.
BTW, this was not not tiny town in the middle of nowhere. We were in the 3rd largest city in the state, a suburb to the largest city. But I will admit that the school was surrounded by cornfields and I could walk about 10 minutes from my house to get to the edge of where everything became rural land with cows, corn, and more cows.
These days, I only have pellet rifles for fun shooting at targets out back (different state 1000+ miles away).
You can and should expect a kid that age to understand there are consequences to his/her actions.
13 is well under the age of majority. It means the law itself doesn't expect that kid to understand the consequences of his actions.
Not stepping in front of traffic and not lighting gas fires in libraries are things that are taught early, because it is simple (traffic=dangerous, fire=dangerous) and it is important for survival. And still, we usually don't let 13 year olds alone in libraries.
But walking the fine line between what is an acceptable joke and what *some* adults interpret as a "public terrorist threat" requires a level of maturity that we can't really expect a 13 year old to have. I'm quite sure (I hope) the vast majority of adults correctly interpreted the video as a joke, police made sure the kid isn't a threat, just to be on the safe side, he isn't. Give that kid an assignment and we are done.
Why are two totally unrelated cases mixed up in this one post?
1. A 13 year old asks Siri a joke question and posts photos of the result.
2. A 14 year old posts photos of himself posing with a weapon.
Apart from both being young boys there is no correlation.
The first case is definitely not worth even investigating.
In the the second I question why a boy at that age has unsupervised access to a weapon and if he was supervised, why photos were taken and published. The parents should be investigated.
We have full grown adults that we don't have such expectations of and elect to political positions. See Anthony Weiner for the start of a long list of people. We can't have such expectations of anyone under 17.
I think the bigger problem in society is people like you who over react to things like this. Over punishing this individual won't help him. And worse, it doesn't do anything for all the others.
Cops are very brave going after children who say stupid shit on the internet.
I guess all the violent crimes like rape and murder have been solved. Right?
That's true, the summary is misleading. The article doesn't say why he's being charged with intimidation, right after it says the police determined that it was a joke with no credible threat.
That's essentially what Trump's Make America Great Again boils down to: the notion that things have gotten worse and we can see that people like to buy into this notion when it isn't true.
Things have gotten worse for the working class even though the economy as a whole is booming. Of course, the policies put in place by Trump (lower taxes on the rich) and the policies he fights for (dismantle the healthcare system for non-wealthy people) make the situation worse, not better. The tragedy and danger of electing Trump is that his policies exacerbate the economic problems of the working class, generating more fear and causing more people to turn to Authoritarianism as a way out.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
U all failed miserably :(
[($)]
because there's been repeated school shootings and the adults don't seem to be doing anything about it.
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wasn't it true in the 90s? And the economy is way worse now than it was in the 90s. The 90s had the bloody .com boom.
Violent crime's down all around. The growing consensus seems to be getting lead out of the air is why. That means less violent youths and so less school shootings.
As for why they're getting more coverage? Not sure, we'd need more studies, and there's a ton of laws and rules in effect to discourage them (yeah, I know they're not banned outright, that's not how you suppress a thing. Ban it and you get Streisand effect).
If I had to make a guess I'd say the shootings are worse now. e.g. more deaths, more wounded. But that's barely even a guess.
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Uhm, yes. You can say no to being interrogated and you'll be held/bailed until trial. Never talk to the police, a jury trial is the only place you have the opportunity to talk, anything you say to the police can and will be used against you, never to your benefit.
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To quote Aristotle, "Whoooooooosh!"
The GP's point isn't whether school shootings may, or may not, now be more common in the USA. It's the fact that it's even an issue. It's an anomaly not only in the developed world, but the world as a whole. It's an indicator that something in its society is really quite fucked up.
Yes. This. This is what I meant.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
You say:
The authors are just claiming that there's a correlation, so the cause may be deeper, but it was an interesting take that I hadn't seen before.
But the article says:
...which might cause despair over how getting an education does not necessarily lead to finding a job.
Which is a conjecture but, since it offers no alternatives, functions as a claim. Also, they've chosen to plot the graph, which shows a weak-moderate correlation at best, over only 2 1/2 decades. What happened before that?
Re: school shootings in the USA, they go back to at least the 1800s & they've been increasing steadily in recent years.
And a bias towards making anything that makes "g.g.g.g.guns!!!" look bad.
Are you saying that the constant stream of films & TV shows that depict "good guys" portrayed by attractive actors, running around with guns in their hands & shooting at people is media bias against guns?
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
Let's all jump on this kids back. Don't mind that siri happily serves up a list a schools and lets not mention that a school shooting is such a big threat in america because its so easy to pull off. In the words of dr strangelove, it requires only the will to do so.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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Kid threatens to shoot up school. Kid faces charges. As it should be.
Unless the threat/joke was actually credible, the kid should not have been charged. Believe it or not, there are ways to discipline children without involving the police and courts.
You know, if you really wanted to cut down on school shootings, maybe your culture should stop glorifying guns and violence. Just a crazy idea. Maybe, just maybe also control your guns better so that they aren't left out in the open for kids to grab, you know, be responsible with dangerous things you own.
But who am I kidding, there is an inevitable mod down waiting for even suggesting such sensible things. Thoughts and prayers to those modding this down, gourd press.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Does anyone have a link to the actual social media post? Or a copy of it?
I think it's impossible to form a valid opinion on whether the kid should be charged or not without it.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Apparently it's not reasonable to expect adults to know the difference between a terrorist threat and teasing Siri, why hold 13 year olds to a higher standard?
Look, as long as there is blood, the crowds will be happy. Whose blood it is is largely irrelevant. This isn't about justice, it is about blood.
In this particular instance, the kid was the easier target. *shrug* Gotta love the world we live in...
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
There is no "justice" to serve here. Only court fines and shattered dreams.
There is blood. That is sufficient.
Seen any witches recently?
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen